1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the field of telephony including Internet Protocol network telephony (IPNT) and pertains particularly to methods and apparatus for managing interactions in a queuing system.
2. Discussion of the State of the Art
In the art of telephony, enterprise communications centers are now processing more and more digital communications. With the advent of the Internet network and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), communications centers are processing more and more voice interactions coming in from wide area networks, such as the Internet. In many cases, callers have both an active connection open to a Website of the enterprise and a voice telephony connection, or interactive chat connection to an agent of the enterprise.
In most telephony applications a queue is used when there are no available agents to handle calls, and the customer's request for conversing with an agent must be placed in queue until an agent becomes available to take the call. Many queuing systems are first-in-first-out (FIFO) queues that have an estimated wait time parameter (EWT). EWT is the estimated amount of time that the caller just placed in queue will have to wait before they can expect the call to be connected to an agent. Live assistance is typically voice assistance but may also include realtime text-based interaction like one-on-one chat, email or text messaging.
In some telephony applications, a queuing system can have some priority order with respect to the interactions queued therein. For example, a very important person (VIP) may be queued ahead of a potential customer already in queue with no history of interaction with the enterprise. Priority-based queues are typically based on information that is pre-known about the calling party of the queued interaction.
When EWT is high in a queuing system, potential customers begin dropping out of queue, pushing up the call abandonment rate. Some enterprises offer a customer call-back option that may be presented by interactive voice response (IVR) either before en-queuing the customer for assistance or after the customer is already in queue for assistance. However, many potential customers are not available for the scheduled call-back or have found another solution by then.
It is desirable that potential customers do not become bored or uncomfortable waiting for live assistance. Audio content such as background music (music-on-hold) is typically presented to customers waiting for live assistance. Periodic reporting of EWT may also be a feature of the queuing system, as well as periodic call-back offers. However, despite current ways to engage and communicate with potential customers while they are waiting for live assistance, many still drop out of queue when wait times are high, resulting in lost potential business for the enterprise. Others may be in the wrong queue and are not redirected into a proper queue until a live agent has picked up the call.
Therefore, what is clearly needed is a system and methods for presenting potential customers with interactive Web content while they are in queue to keep them engaged and to potentially provide opportunity through active tracking of interaction with the presented content for advancement in queue or placement in a more relevant queue.